Velvet and Newspaper
by Truthful Blasphemy
Summary: An almost-smut OC/OC oneshot that I wrote merely out of boredom. Review, don't review, read because you like fluff and cuteness and oddly sex-scene-free one-night stands with attractive newsies... This is kind of just me building on Firefly's story.


**This story started out as a naughty oneshot based on Breathe Carolina's "Velvet" but ended up as a cutesy oneshot that contains a one-night stand...**

**All inability to write smut aside, it's just cute and contains no smut.**

**OC/OC, Newsieverse.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Newsies. Or Notes. Just Firefly...**

* * *

Firefly leaned against the rickety wooden chair, ignoring the splinters trying to dig through the back of her shirt and into her shoulder blades, and took another sip of her beer. Her gaze wandered around the room. Spot and Skittery were arm wrestling to impress a group of giggling young dancers, Jack was at the bar getting drunk, and Racetrack had started a cuss-heavy poker game at a corner table. Other newsies from various boroughs were streaming in and out of Medda's lounge and Firefly tried to observe every one as best she could, her half-empty beer slowly disappearing from the smudged brown bottle. She was watching as Racetrack angrily threw his hat onto the table when a midsection obscured her view.

"May I help you?" Firefly asked, looking up. The boy took a seat next to her, setting his own drink on the table. Her hand went instinctively to the back of her neck, making sure her hair was still hidden underneath the hand-me-down grey cabby cap.

"Why aren't you joining the party?" the boy asked. Firefly took another swig and looked over at him.

"I'm not much for parties," Firefly shrugged, "They're too loud. I just come here to get drunk and watch people."

"How can you afford to get drunk?" the boy asked with a laugh.

"Pick-pocketing," Firefly smirked. "It's a nice way to line my pockets when selling papes just enough. What's your name?"

"Notes. Yours?" he asked.

"Firefly," she responded, pulling her blond hair down out of the cabby cap and shaking it out so that the dirty-blond strands hung down over her shoulders. She wasn't even sure why she wore it hidden anymore; everyone knew she was a girl. Old habits just seemed to die hard when you lived on the streets for long enough.

"How'd you end up with your name?" Firefly asked, ordering another round of beers for them and paying the waiter who looked stressed beyond belief.

"Well I'm always singin' and the boys in Bronx wanted to name me somethin' to do with music," Notes explained, "But Nightingale was too flowery. So they thought of music notes, and then I ended up as Notes. How'd you get yours?"

"Spot says I light up like a lighting bug every time I'm happy or excited," Firefly rolled her eyes. "Or I used to, when I was younger."

"Embittered by the world?" Notes asked with a sideways glance, his second beer mostly gone.

"Isn't everyone?" Firefly smiled tiredly. Notes nodded and finished his beer, hailing for another.

"This round is on me," Notes asserted, wrapping his arms around Firefly's shoulders. When neither of them could walk in a straight line, they staggered out of Medda's lounge, their arms wrapped tightly around one another to stay standing.

"Where are we going?" Firefly laughed. Her voice was loud and full of alcohol fueled joy.

"Bronx!" Notes returned, equally as exuberant. They made it (somehow) to the Bronx lodging house and stumbled past a group of younger boys playing poker and up the stairs. At the top, with his arm still firmly around Firefly's waist, Notes turned and called to them. "Don't bother me!"

"You're making me look indecent," Firefly admonished.

"You use big words when you're drunk," Notes smiled, pushing her into a small room off to the side of the main bunk room.

"And you're the leader of the Bronx Newsies," Firefly slurred, falling backwards onto the bed. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't feel the need," Notes shrugged. Firefly didn't want to feel this sober. The beer was making her head spin and Notes was attractive…highly attractive. So she busied her mind by standing up again and trying to unhook the buttons on his shirt.

"I have a thing for guys with brown eyes," she giggled when he made her job far easier by pulling the shirt over his head. They kissed. It wasn't as sloppy or drunk as she'd expected it to be. They could both taste the cheap beer on the other's breath but the kiss was long, sweet, and soft. Notes looked into her eyes, melting her self control with a single glance. He slid his hand up her side and over her arm, up to cup the side of her face as they kissed again, more passionately. As they fell backward onto the bed, his other hand now firmly holding her waist and fiddling with the buttons of her skirt, Firefly took back every mean thought she'd ever had about the Bronx.

When she woke up, she pulled on her previously discarded undergarments. Over that she buttoned Notes's shirt. She cuddled against his side, smiling when his tan, slightly muscled arm curled around her hips to pull her closer. Laying her head against his bare chest, Firefly wondered if this is what hope felt like. Hope that something so stupid and strange, a drunken decision that she would definitely come to regret later, could make her feel so complete for merely a moment. A brief pause in the pain she'd been going through.

The seventeen year old listened as Notes's breathing patterns changed and he woke up, his brown eyes blinking down at her blearily. "Hello," he smiled.

"Good morning," Firefly replied. "How did you sleep?"

"On my back," Notes smirked.

"Does every newsboy in New York City know that joke?" Firefly laughed, sighing when Notes nuzzled against her hair.

"Probably."

"We should go, we can still make the afternoon edition," Firefly suggested, sitting up and giving a rather feline stretch. Notes ran a finger gently down her spine.

"I'd much rather stay in bed with you."

"But what would your newsies think?" Firefly asked, turning to look back at him.

"That I have a hangover," Notes smiled warmly.

"I meant about me," Firefly paused, looking down at the floorboards.

"I don't care what they think," Notes shrugged. "I met you last night and I barely know you. Let's sell the afternoon edition, together. After that we can go and get lunch together at Tibby's and talk."

"That sounds nice," Firefly dared grin again, allowing Notes to get up and untangle himself from the thin cotton sheet.

"Know what else sounds nice?" Notes asked, pulling on his pants.

"What?" Firefly returned, giving his shirt back and finding her own.

"You staying here, in Bronx, if everything goes well today," Notes suggested, tossing Firefly her skirt.

"That does sound nice. I think I'll consider it," Firefly smiled. When they were properly clothed and cleaned and normal-looking, Notes took Firefly by the hand and led her into an unpredictable future.


End file.
